Deborah Tonguis: What it’s Like in Walden’s Online Classroom

I had to be convinced that a brick-and-mortar, face-to-face educational experience could be improved upon because I’m very much an extrovert. I love talking to people, and I’m in a classroom every day, so I’m always engaging a conversation. But from the first class, I realized that real relationship could be achieved through this technology, through cyberspace. To be quite honest, my initial reaction was that there was a focus on my writing, that someone wasn’t looking at me and judging me for my southern accent or because I was female or, you know, for the way I looked. When we engage in conversation, in scholarly conversation through the postings, through the chat rooms, document sharing, whatever I’m doing online, I know that they’re looking at my ideas, that they’re listening to my voice through writing. And it’s exciting at the residencies to meet the people who’ve been in my classes, you know, and go “oh that’s who you are.” But more important than that, it’s just fantastic to have that freedom, that sense of freedom, and I did not believe that it could be achieved, but these relationships are real, they’re collegial, and they absolutely encourage me to be a scholar, and that’s what I enjoy most of all.